In the Swing

I've been down with pneumonia for a week. Which was rough, the starting end of it making me cancel an 8 hour hike. Now the start of a new month, and I'm back on my feet. While I was down with the sickness I got the fever. The heat is gone, and all that cool weather is on its' way.

The first signs of winter are all around. Labor Day up at WaWa, instructors starting to get that twitch, and shop techs being dragged in to tune skis.

I'm gonna work the sale to get some extra scratch. Hopefully it'll either help me buy some of my own winter stuff this year, or pay for books for the semester. Either way it'll be a welcome visitor to my account. The deals at the sale this year are looking pretty good. 30% off last years stuff, which seems small until you look at the tag and see the 100 off. At least it won't be as crazy as Columbus day.

I'm ready for school to start to distract me for the next few months. Hopefully I'll be swimming everyday... at least that is the plan.

I'm still ready for that snow to be crunching underneath.

Stowe2

So the cliff hanger to what happened on the second day of the trip.

Well this is probably one of my favorite stories to tell in person so I'll give a totally lame recap. Basically we went out on the second day very very sore. So much so we couldn't drag ourselves out of bed to get an all day lift ticket. Instead we got there around mid day and got a half day ticket. Got on the snow and instead of it being bulletproof like the day before it was mushy and fun for trail riding. In the woods it was like wet cement. Not great condition for the woods. So we took a few laps through the park. It was fun, hit the half pipe, a couple well built jumps that I wasn't worried about because it wasn't Wachusett. On top of it we got some good pics.

Chris of course being such a tree monkey wanted to quickly get back in the trees. He had convinced us to hike the Chin which involved a 40 minute hike up to the summit. From there we were supposed to find a chute and make our way down. To some road and walk back to the car.

What happened was Chris getting lost on top of the Mtn. and Jarod taking over the leading portion of the hike. which I didn't know because I was at the back of the line. What I did know however is that Jarod had never been to Stowe, he had told me about a dozen times how excited he was to come on the four hour ride up. Now I was a bit dismayed and as we began our descent off the north face to find a better place to put our boards on I slipped on the hard snow and began sliding chest first towards a cliff with my trusty board in hand. I let go of my board and barehanded clawed my way towards the only charlie brown tree I could see. I grabbed hold of it and it whipped me around. I'm told that my board flew off the cliff quite well. It took quite a cliff drop.

I got up and my hands were mangled with nails bent back and blood starting to pour someone suggested I put my gloves on. From there on, after getting Jarod to find my board we made it down to the bottom. Not by jumping back on the trail but sticking to the woods as was our plan. I emerged around 5 30 with plenty of sweat pouring from my body. The near death experience didn't faze my friends, they still made fun of me fifteen minutes after the fact. Asking if I felt closer to God, or if my life had flashed before my eyes. None of us were fazed apparently. Once we got back to the car I grabbed my xtreme team medal that hangs from my mirror and put it on, proudly proclaiming "I earned this today".

We finished off the night with some killer sushi.

Summer Gone...

The summer has already gone without much notice. So far we had about a week or two of warm weather for the entire thing. Which isn't bad for me since I love winter. We also had nearly a month of rain everyday. Which is bad for me because I 1. want that to be snow, and 2. rain totally cause me to be unmotivated. Not sure what it is but it happens that way.

I personally had a great summer.

Took two classes at the college down the street. One was great and the other I won't mention much. America in the 60's it was a fascinating and eye opening. Got to read see and hear about the various counter culture groups through the era. As well as hear the mainstream conservatives who seemed absolutely nutty. One Presidential candidate wanted to Nuke Vietnam and take the war into China and win all of asia for 'democracy'. Regan wanted the national guard to beat up student protestors. To top off the class we had to give a 10 minute oral presentation on something that happened during the 60's.

Well the snurfer was invented in '65.

My Prof nearly spit her coffee out her nose when I announced my subject.

There was always a few weeks off here and there but soon I was off for two straight weeks at camp. First Boys camp and then a wedding (at camp) then Sr High. The two weeks were great I got to spend some quality time with the youth that I care about and make some new friendships. I was amazed at how two weeks at the same place were so different. Except for the water front. It stayed the same, always as fun as the week before. I managed to perfect 'the flying squirrel' and my front flip as well as invent a new move I like to call 360 cannonball. It's fun and easy.

The speakers were great and the Sr high band was fantastic. My cabin was nearly not even work. For a get-to-know-you exercise we ran over to cabin 1 and threw small rocks on their metal roof for a few minutes. Once we were all warmed up it made things much easier to get along.

After a two week break, with plenty of youth group prep work swirled in. I was back at camp for another week. There were 6 speakers for one week of camp. It was off the chain! An amazing week for sure. No comparison as far as planning and speaking.

Now I sit in my room thinking of the Summer that is gone. With camps, classes, and beach days in the mix. I wonder how in the world I got pneumonia?! Which has slowed me down just enough to write on this blog once more.

Stowked Day 1

Reflecting back on probably what was one of the most epic two days of snowboarding I've had yet.

I went up there with maybe one or two days in the trees ever. And we spent the entire time in the glades/trees. It was epic and I spent most of the time playing catch up to Jarod and Chris.

Chris was a great guide the first day. The snow was sorta mashed potatoes in the woods, and bulletproof on the trails. We were way better off in the woods. I couldn't even tell you what the trails are like there if I wanted to. We hit up the 'kitchen wall' a few times. It ended up being pretty familar by the end of it all.

The knife edge was probably my favorite of the kitchen wall area. (and forgive me for not knowing all the glades names I was trying to keep up most of the time). There was this great section of bank turns towards the bottom that I really started to catch my rhythm in. We also found this great little area with a killer pillow tree. We all took a few runs off that, not that it was a great run off because it wasn't. It did make for great pictures!

We seemed to continually end up at the bottom hitting this nice progression park. Which was a great place to just play and not worry. There was this massive butter box at the very end which on a particular run through I ended up falling chest down on it right in the middle. It was big enough and flat enough that I wasn't sliding off and couldn't reach a side to pull myself off so i ended up doing this spinning seal maneuver that I could hardly not laugh over.

By far the favorite glade of the first day was Angel Cake. Up until going in there they had been narrow paths we were following in the woods. Either we were in a valley or on a knife edge, fun but you only have so many choices. Angel Cake was wide open and untouched, It was simply a blast. Constantly on our way down we were looking for things to jib. And found plenty too.

It was humid through the day and I ended up soaking all my clothes but especially my gloves. Which were still wet when we went back to MA so it was great when we stopped by the Burton factory and picked up some great deals. Specifically some dry gloves. By the end of the day we were so happy with Chris taking us around we were about to give him a trophy for it. By the end of day 2 I would of taken the trophy back.

Winter's End

I seem to always have mixed feelings about the end. This year especially. On one hand I was getting tired of teaching and the snow was crap, but on the other I had some of my best days at the end. But in New England it seems like the end is always on life support. I write this at the end of May and I hear that Mammoth is still open. WaWa closed at the beg. of April. We have such short seasons in comparison.

So in the 3 weeks of snowboarding I did in March I did 2 days at Stowe, Ride 'um and Rank 'um, 2 days at Jay, and one day at Okemo. It was a busy 3 weeks. But epic.


Final Count: 93 days of snowboarding and i ended march 21st

Trips North

In early December I went to Mount Snow for a three day clinic and it really jump started my season to ride to a higher level and set some goals I wanted to cover. Since then I've been picking away at all those goals. Specifically I wanna be killer with pressure tricks. I don't need to rely on terrain to enjoy snowboarding. Like having a killer park, which won't happen unless the park guys rally. Or steeps or trees or moguls. Ya good ole WaWa does not have any of that really. But I can definitely play around the trail no matter whats going on.

As far as trips up North. I've taken quite a few with a few in the hole. After Mount Snow it was mostly spending a ton of time at WaWa trying to clinic and teach. Then school Groups started up and I was nearly trapped with no chance of parole and then In late January I went up and rode at Mount Sunapee. It's like a bigger WaWa from what I heard. It was alright. We didn't catch it with the greatest conditions. Very Cold and hard snow. The terrain didn't have much that appealed to me. It all seemed pretty much the same. The trails to me had very little character. They were just cut straight down. I love the twist and turn in trails opposed to the straight down kinda look. But on the bright side they had a great Quarter Pipe. Where I did my first 540. Basically I went up for a 3 and kept rotating. I didn't even realize it until I was riding out regular and wondered why.


The Next trip was Stratton in the begining of Febuary and It was a blast I got to try all the new Flow stuff for next year and meet some really cool peoples. I enjoyed the parks at Stratton. They were so well made. Got me to love Rhythm sections more than I used to. I rode with Kevin Addy this guy was so fast compared to the pace I'm used to riding. The funniest thing from that entire trip was that when I looked across the way from the Flow tent there was Burton set up blaring their music and being obnoxious but right next to them was Lib Tech. who doesn't even hide their disdain for Burton.

Then at the end of Feb I went to Pat's Peak and it was of course aweful. Someone I was with got pretty seriously injured and I felt like giving up snowboarding for a few days. I'm in no rush to go back there. The other thing that got me upset was that their boxes and rails were better than WaWa's. Everything else was worse though.

Now with one section of the season left I gotta update on stowe, the upcoming trip to Jay and the very possible trip to tuckerman's. It could end up being a very epic season.

Early Season

This winter has been ridiculously good. Especially for WaWa. The market may be down but we have had more snow storms and consistently good weather than many years past. My riding is so much better than it was last year! I've taken more pictures and video than last year and even nailed the tricks I wanted to for the year plus some that I didn't plan on. But I gotta include the massive Ice Storm that hit us early in december and closed down schools and took peoples power away for weeks. But besides that, it has been a superb winter.

I even got up to Mount Snow in early December for three intensive days that really jump started my season. Even though I was fighting some weird headaches. The first day was so ridiculously cold and I was just getting the worst headaches I had to eventually call it quits for the day right after lunch cause my head was pounding. Every day after that was similar but just not as bad. I'm not if it was from the extreme weather changes or the fact I kept going head over heels into the soft stuff.

Doesn't really matter it's all over now. I gotta look forward and get a few more trips in.